Just Now

Just now a jet’s rumble in the shopping mall of the sky. The birds were talking. They stopped, then resumed. A new mailman is walking the street, learning by number the ghosts who watch him from behind diaphanous curtains. The ladies stand in nightgowns in the middles of living rooms and the tvs behind them on thickly carpeted floors are too large. They are lit for distraction only. Gameboards light up and things spin but nobody really cares. A cat comes to sit on a porch where it does not live. It tries out a teal molded plastic beach chair with a cushion on it. It naps. An ambulance pulls up without its siren blaring and rests beside a curb. Someone is doing something with language in there, in a little island of calm. We understand the nature of the personal. Like the ambulance driver, it works for death.